Drama as a Literary Form

Drama as a literary form and as a performance art was created in ancient Greece, coming to full fruition in the fifth century B.C., the era that produced works like the Phoenician Women by Euripides. The dramas developed from a religious festival and then became a celebration in itself, but the underlying impetus for drama has from the first been the depiction of conflict. Conflict is a necessary component in the drama and is also a necessary component in any literary form in some degree. The more ancient epic poems like The Iliad are also dramatic in tone, presenting conflict among characters in terms similar to those found in the drama. An epic poem is more like a novel than a play because the staged drama is a more concise and focused presentation of conflict, while any one section of a work like The Iliad can be lifted out as if it were a drama and constitute a separate instance of a drama or a dramatic moment. This can be seen specifically with reference to Book 24 as Priam comes to Achilleus' shelter to ransom the body of his son Hektor, a scene that fits into the totality of the poem but that also constitutes a separate dramatic moment complete in itself. This scene can be compared to a dramatic scene in a work like The Phoenician Women to show how each expresses the action in a dramatic way.

In Book 24 of The Iliad, Priam follows the guidance of the gods and travels to the tent of Achilleus, the man who killed his son, and he is successful in his effort and so returns to Troy with the body of Hektor. This scene in this tent is "dramatic" in the sense that it is an encounter fraught with emotion and can be seen as the scene toward which the entire poem has been building. The Iliad is en epic poem telling a story on a broad canvas, covering many years of war, several important battles, conflicts among generals on both sides of the war, and interactions with the gods throughout. The war as a whole can be considered a great drama, while individual scenes in the poem can be seen as separate dramas involving human emotions, major themes of right and wrong, the intervention of the gods in the lives of human beings, and so on.

The scene in Achilleus' tent does not exist in isolation. As with any drama, meaning is found not just in the action of the moment but in the history leading to that moment. The rest of the poem has brought the reader (or listener, as these poems were presented orally) to this point so that the reader knows of the reasons for the fighting, the arguments that have taken place, the inner character of Achilleus which affects how he behaves, the way Hektor died, the grief of the father and other Trojans, and even the outcome of the war. As with most Greek drama, the audience knows how the whole thing ends because the source is a well-known story, and drama emerges not just from what happens but from how it is shown as happening, from the details of character and the interaction between characters that constitutes drama.

All of these elements are presented in the epic poem, while in a drama, many of these elements would only be mentioned or would be left as knowledge the audience already has because they know the story. Drama is more selective, more concise, and more focused on the dramatic situation than on the sweep of a large-scale story. The dramatic situation in this one scene has shifts and turns even in the short time covered. Priam takes a ransom with him consisting of twelve robes, twelve cloaks, twelve blankets, twelve capes and shirts, ten bars of gold, two tripods, four cauldrons, and a Thracian cup. Priam arrives and immediately grasps Achilleus by the knees, telling of his grief and of the need for Achilleus to be compassionate and to return the body of Hektor. For his part, Achilleus speaks of his won victory by reminding Priam of all that the latter has lost, but he also shows that he is fully aware that the gods have guided Priam to this place and that he must return Hektor to his father. The tension of the opening is never fully dissipated even as Achilleus shows his hospitality and makes certain promises to Priam about holding off the fighting for twelve days while the Trojans bury the son of their ruler. However, just as it appears that the situation is concluded, the god Hermes comes to Priam and warns him to leave now because if the Greeks find him asleep in the morning, they may decide he is worth more as a ransom and will not allow him to leave as Achilleus has promised.

The drama is characterized by language that often involves or approaches poetry, but the presentation differs greatly. An oral tradition of epic poetry places one "actor," the speaker before an audience as he recites the epic poem and so tells the story. Any dramatic element emerges from the characters and the story, carried by the poetry and involving images that can be created in the minds of the listeners. The drama creates images directly on a stage, making use of a number of actors who dress, speak, and behave like the characters whose roles they take on stage, in the Greek era using masks and exaggerating the action to convey the meaning. A fundamental element in both genres are scenes in which characters interact with one another, scenes described by the poet and acted out in the drama.

In a play like The Phoenician Women, the entire work is a contained drama with a more specific focus than is found in an epic poem, while a given scene may have the same sort of dramatic power and sustaining quality as the one scene from The Iliad has. One scene in the play, found in lines 446-638, three characters interact, Eteocles, Polyneices, and Jocasta. The play as a whole concerns the conflict between the two sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polyneices, and the interaction they have with their mother, Jocasta. The story of Oedipus was well-known and served as the source for a number of dramas of the time. The audience did not need to be told the story and instead would understand fully the interactions they saw among these characters and the background leading them to this situation. In this scene, the two brothers meet as their mother pleads with them to reconcile, making this a key scene in the story of this family. Eteocles arrives and states that he is doing so as a favor to his other, and he also says he is taking time off from the fight he is waging to do this. A sense of urgency is this given to the scene as this warrior tears himself away from the field of battle to cope with a family issue.